Proof of concept to recover thermal wastes from aluminum electrolysis cells using Stirling engines

The production of aluminum is a low energy-efficient industrial process. In fact, almost half of its energy demand is lost under the form of heat along the production line. For this reason, aluminum producers are interested in improving energy efficiency of their smelters by recovering the thermal losses. It is well known that a significant loss of energy occurs across the sidewalls of the electrolysis cells. This paper proposes a proof of concepts where the sidewall thermal wastes are used to drive Low Temperature Differential (LTD) Stirling engines. To estimate the losses, a heat transfer study is implemented; heat conduction coupled with mixed convection and radiation is evaluated by using the OpenFOAM Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) software. Then, a parametric study is performed to analyse cell working conditions under which thermal wastes could be recovered. The heat flux and the temperature of the thermal wastes are used to judge the utilization of possible Stirling engine technologies. Two scenarios are studied: (i) a plane heat collector coupled to the radiative sidewall and (ii) a plane heat collector in direct thermal contact with the cell sidewall. It is demonstrated that the recovery of the wastes by radiation is technically feasible and it does not threaten the safety of the smelter; furthermore, the losses can power some Stirling engines given in the open literature. Therefore, the recovery of the radiative wastes and the further conversion by means of the Stirling engine is an interesting solution to improve the aluminium smelter energy efficiency.